For a brief time the good ship was in great danger. But a shower of shells sent the daring tug-boat to the bottom, and the fire-ship floated away. Then a hose-pipe spurted water on the flames. The fire was put out and the Hartford was saved.
That was only the beginning of the great battle. From that time on, fire and flame, boom and roar, death and destruction, were everywhere. The great shells from the mortars dropped bursting into the forts. The huge wood piles blazed high on the banks. Ships and forts hurled a frightful shower of shells at each other. Blazing fire-ships came drifting down. The foremost boats were fiercely fighting with the Confederate craft. The hindmost boats were fighting with the forts. The uproar seemed enough to drive the very moon from the sky.
But soon victory began to hold out her hand to the Union fleet. For all the ships passed the forts, some of the Confederate vessels were driven ashore and others fled up stream; and in a little while only three of them were left, and these were kept safe under the guns of the fort. The battle had been fought and won, and the triumphant fleet steamed up the river to New Orleans. The forts were still there, but what could they do, with Union forces above and below? Four days after the fight they were surrendered to Porter and his mortar fleet.
There was one final act to the great Mississippi battle. For as Commander Porter, in his flagship, lay near Fort Jackson, down on him came the iron-clad Louisiana, all in a blaze. But just before she reached his vessel she blew up; and that was the end of the Louisiana and the fight. The river was open and New Orleans was captured. Thus ended the greatest naval battle of the Civil War.
Two years and more afterward Farragut fought another great battle. This was in the Bay of Mobile, then a great place for blockade-runners. These were swift vessels that brought goods from Europe to the South. The Union fleet did all it could to stop them, but they could not be stopped at Mobile from outside, so Farragut was told to fight his way inside the bay. And that is what he did.
Mobile Bay is like a great bell, thirty miles long and fifteen miles wide. There are two islands at the mouth, so that the entrance is not more than a mile wide. And on each of these islands was a strong fort, which had been built by the government before the war. The Confederates had taken possession of these forts and had big guns in them.
The first thing to do was to pass the forts. No chain could be put across the channel here, but there was something worse, for nearly two hundred torpedoes were planted in the water near the forts. Some of these were made of beer-kegs and some of tin; and they were planted so thickly that it was not easy to get in without setting them off. Then, when the fort and the torpedoes were passed, there were the ships. Three of these were small gunboats, of not much account. But there was a great iron-clad ship, the Tennessee, which was twice as strong as the Merrimac. It was covered with iron five or six inches thick, and carried a half-dozen big guns.
Franklin Buchanan, who had been captain of the Merrimac, was admiral of the Tennessee.
But Admiral Farragut—he was an admiral now—had his iron-clad vessels, too. Four monitors like the old Monitor of Hampton Roads, had been built and sent him, and these, with his wooden vessels, made nearly twenty ships.
Such was the fleet with which Farragut set out for his second great victory, early in the morning of August 5, 1864. It was six o'clock when the ships crossed the bar and headed in for Fort Morgan.